HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 04-19-2016-13-2 - Information Item - Memorandum - Solid Waste Department Awarded Year-long Interns from UNC’s Department of Health Behavior for 2016-17 INFORMATION ITEM
Memorandum
To: Board of Orange County Commissioners
From: Gayle Wilson, Solid Waste Management Director
Subject: Solid Waste Department Awarded Year-long Interns from UNC's
Department of Health Behavior for 2016-17
Date: April 19, 2016
Orange County Solid Waste Management has been awarded four interns from the UNC
School of Public Health Department of Health Behavior who will be working through all
of the next academic year on improving recycling and waste reduction at apartments in
Orange County. The Department was awarded this project through a competitive process
put on annually by the Department of Health Behavior to give their Master's candidates
an opportunity to develop, demonstrate and measure practical applications of their work
to improve health behaviors; solid waste management, at its core, is a public health issue.
The Solid Waste Management Department proposed that a group of interns work on the
ongoing challenge of improving recycling and waste reduction at multifamily housing
throughout Orange County. A diverse and transient population of over 30,000 lives in
over 16,000 multifamily housing in the County and the County provides recycling
services to virtually all of them. The Department competed for the Capstone interns with
twenty-seven other area agencies and non-profits and were among nine selected.
Annually the UNC Department of Health Behavior solicits projects for its graduate
students' Capstone projects as part of their Masters of Public Health degrees. The
Departments' intentions for their interns are to:
1. Provide mentored, real-world learning opportunities for HB MPH students;
2. Provide services to, and advance the missions of, local organizations who
do public health work; and
3. Produce products that have a positive impact on public health.
The four interns who will be working on the project are Mersedes Brown, Tianyuan Liu,
Morgen Palfrey and Katherine Souris. Blair Pollock, County Solid Waste Planner will
act as their preceptor assisted by Muriel Williman, the Department's Education and
Outreach Coordinator. The team will meet with our staff April 28 to begin planning next
year's work.